There is an ad running right now on Swedish TV. It’s Einstein sitting in an armchair with his mobile, playing some kind of stupid game. ”Don’t waste your potential” is the message. I don’t remember the company who made the ad, but the picture is really strong. Thinking of my own smart kids who have a good sense of math and nature science but, too often, as soon as they get the chance, when mummy is not saying no, they choose a stupid game. For entertainment, recreation, spend time, whatever reason.

This ad make me think of them. And their intelligent friends who do the same choice.

Do their screen entertainment, gaming and random spending (wasting) of time, suck out the potential from them? I don’t know yet. They’re just 8 & 10 years old. And to be honest, do the Netflix-frenzy suck the potential out of us, adults?

I see youths with their necks in the iPads during school breaks. What will happen? In 10 years will we only have a million zombies walking around with the next generation iPads not capable of doing anything?

Next day, me and my 10 year old son are in a conversation about a ”peace making machine”. Reasoning with each other. Since Man seem not capable of solving the issues of war, starving, migration, poverty, climate disasters maybe a much more rational intelligence such as a computer could do it?

Knowing too much about computing I sense in my heart that this actually could be true.

Man is stupid. Irrational. Destructive. Egoist.
Machine is rational, logical with so far no destructive characteristics on their own.

To let go to the digital intelligence might be what’s needed to save mankind from destroying itself. Acting rational and in a logical way there are many solutions to transport, consumption, conflicts, poverty. Man just not do them. Man lack a rational approach and that’s why we see all this misery.

I wish my kid will invent this peace making machine. I think I might be too old myself.

I wish the machine will let people keep being people, with emotions, art, love and all of that but the machine run issues such as economy, international and national politics, climate contracts and conflicts in stead of us.

The HAL experience in 2001 or War Games is less likely to happen than a machine actually being wiser than us, when they get the power over decisions.

Sorry Agile about the title. I can’t figure out another way to say it. Time to ditch the concept of Agile and talk about what matters. All we want to do is Good. In projects, organizations, development, business.

I was upset by everyone, and I mean everyone (at least in the IT domain), putting ”Agile” in front of every word related to their work, to make some sort of statement. ”We need to be more agile”, ”you have to make this team agile”, ”Our organization should be more agile”, ”In agile user experience we do this”, ”to have an agile release process you need to..”, ”our marketing department is agile”.. Seriously, what do you mean really?

A friend of mine, @froderik, suggested we just replace ”agile” with ”good” and it will become more clear.

Try that.

The Agile manifesto did something awesome more than 10 years ago, putting into words something that needed to be put into words. To put attention to something that was not good in the IT business, and could become better.

Now, the Agile manifesto seems to has served it’s purpose and it’s not enough as a guide anymore. For instance there’s nothing in the Manifesto that says we actually should deliver stuff (product and services). 🙂 You’ll see it if you read it as another friend @NiclasReimertz reminded me of. It’s fine. It’s just time to take a breath and take the next step on the ladder.

Nowadays, the word Agile is used in every situation to explain something bad, or good, or middle. It doesn’t mean anything any longer. How many times have you lately heard the word ”agile” used in any kind of setting?

The Agile communities did change my professional world. With the help of Agile people I learned new methods and structures to do better team leadership & development processes and somewhat better services and products. For these communities, Agile is now more of a brand name. People know who they are by the name. No need to change. But in all other settings Agile is obsolete.

Now, to do seriously good services and products for my customers, there are so many things that need to be considered, known and explored. Business, people, process, user experience, quality, domain, context, learning. Knowledge from the history and science of communication, psychology, engineering, learning, marketing, technology as well as crazyness, invention, collaboration over great distances, with highly integrated and complicated or complex systems, Agile just don’t have the chance to give an answer any more. Now I just want to do Good.

I get confused and restless when hearing Agile. What do you really really want? I ask.
You want a faster release cadency?
A functioning team?
An innovative product?
A stable environment?
Happy users?
Big sales?

Tell me what you want, and I’ll try to find a Good way to do it for you.

Some friends with a little summer house in the beatiful island of Utö, Stockholm archipelago, always invite friends to visit, to stay in one of the two small rooms or in tents. Now they plan to fix their shed down the water to make it liveable.

So they have the idea to bring all friends for a weekend to restore & fix it together with them. Great idea. But ”oh my” my first thought was. A lousy carpenter I am (maybe I don’t know haven’t tried much), anyway with no experience, I can see this crowd of friends standing there with no plan and some tools and starting to discuss where to start, who will do what. It makes me sick thinking of it. ”I’m more than happy to help out, but please please make sure there is someone gaffer from the start who tells me exactly what to do, and get us going.

This made me think about projects in general, and software projects. A group of people coming together to fix something will for sure gonna be a drain, it there is no direction at all. They’re gonna talk for days. About what and how.

This can work I believe, if you’re really really explicit about that it’s up to the group to decide – everything – and they have easy access to the money – with a sharp deadline and with very direct, personal and visible reward and outcome from the project.

But if it’s not and you just want the shed liveable in the way you want it, and the outcome for the crowd is just ”a pizza and some beers, and maybe access a night or two in the shed during the summer”, this is not the way to do it.

When knowing nothing about how to build a roof, to do up the windows, fix the floors, install a small kitchen, we for sure need a lot of detailed direction. ”Paint this border of the window, first clean them, with this tool” etc. This will make me productive.

If there are some people in the crowd who knows some more, they will only need to know ”you take care of the windows, here’s the material, and some guidelines, ok!” to get anything going. Anything more detailed will get them irritated and much less productive.

Someone might be a builder, or have a lot experience from hobby projects, and all she/he will need to know is some constraints ”fix the house” – it can’t be bigger than x m/2, and have to be red, and must include some sort of kitchen area. And this guy will make it. If you give her too much constraints she will just give up ”what’d’you need me for if you know everything yourself!?”

Depending on experience, different sort of direction is needed. Please don’t expect your friends, being there over the weekend, to ”sort it out themselves”. They won’t. They will spend hours talking, discussing, who does what, what should be done, how it should look. Ending up by the rocks having a swim pretty soon.. or at the porch having a beer ”to think”.

Please assign us some roles. ”You’re in charge of the windows” is very helpful even with no experience. Knowing I’d be in charge for window, I’d make sure to gather some people around to figure out what to do. But HOW to do it? With no experience, please give me someone who can give us directions. ”You should start with..”

In software teams, compared with a bunch of friends fixing a shed, we have most often at least some experience or education. No-one is totally rookie. Therefore we start a bit ahead. Still we can’t put together a new group of mixed people expecting a great result without any sort of direction.

Is the product owner’s direction on WHAT to do, enough for software teams?

And the way many project managers, especially less experienced ones, ”direct” a software team, is that really effective? To tell more or less senior developers & team members exactly what to do and how to do it, is that really working?? Or to say ”we’re agile” and with that leave all direction?

Is the HOW so unique and changing so there is no need for any sort of technical instructions? ”You should start with…” Ever?

What level of direction do YOU want and need for yourself? To be able to fix your software shed with pride?

And have you told anyone that?
For example your project manager, CTO, team members or other managers?

Please tell us at least with a comment on this blog, if not anywhere else. 🙂

Back to normal again?
Exhausted after 4,5 months of real planning and 2 days performing of the Stop starting – Start finishing (Lean Kanban Nordic) conference at Hilton Slussen, Stockholm

I should really be going into ”Kvinnofängelset” mode and watching bad tv-series now. But I guess I’m in the ”Whatever” zone as Henrik Kniberg stated in his finishing talk.

Too tired & inspired to write any real content now, so STOP READING.
This is just some personal things that no-one should care about. Just once I decided to save these kinds of thoughts on a blog instead on a local not-backed-up disk.

During these months of intensive planning, coordinating, email-communicating, decision-making I have many times wondered – OH WHY!?

WHY didn’t I just say NO?

I have a full time job, two little kids & husband – aka DJ on the conference Open Night, trying to do some cooking sometimes (with or without them), exercising sometimes, meeting friends sometimes, put a little time in other hobbies sometimes, reading & writing sometimes and NO TIME to add conference planning.

Now I know why.

Maybe the same reasons as all the other idealists, crazy people out there, doing all these conferences all the time, over the world.

1. There was really no choice – suddenly you’re just there with the conference date set, and you didn’t know how it happened.

2. There is some mission that you have, that is just stronger than the inbox control robot in your head.

3. Enforcing surroundings from the mates that suddenly also said YES against all their rational mind.

4. The joy you see in many eyes during the conference. Without your no-choice commitment the particular event just wouldn’t have happened.

5. The many new and old friends you have met

6. The opportunity to give away small presents to people you admire in front of a big audience.

7. The draw to keep going out of comfort zone

8. The unavoidable learning you make. By arranging a conference I felt that I was more focused and learned more from the speeches than attending. Also just by arranging the conference you learn about communication, collaboration, organization, planning, trust, emotions, people..

So, to those of you that are in the middle of planning a conference :

YOU have no choice!
And many people will love you for that.

Lots of love to all participants and speakers and DF Kompetens for the Stop starting – Start finishing conference.

And to the sponsors of Open Night, without it, it wouldn’t have been the same conference experience. Thanks Frontit, Athega, KnowIT, IRM & LeanKit!

MAYBE – I will now take up some writing on this blog again. If you find nothing here – you might find something on the SmartBear blog I have a hard time deciding when to publish something there or here.. private hobbies & work just doesn’t need to be separated sometimes. Such as enjoying the time with great people at #sssf13 & programme team I can’t really divide in personal or work mates anymore.

If anyone would care, I’m busy finishing programme set up of the conference ”Stop Starting – Start Finishing” (Lean Kanban Nordic) which will be held in Stockholm March 12-13 2013. Together with this great team – Håkan Forss (Avega), Anders Eklund (Frontit), Hermanni Hyytiälä (Reaktor Innovations) and Ketil Jensen (Leverage51) and the professional conference team at DF Kompetens.

At the moment Call for sessions is open a couple of weeks more. Don’t miss the opportunity to have a conversation with an audience of managers and others curious for next step in project , portfolio and change management.